This upcoming weekend is your last chance to see Sean's aunt Kelli performing in "The Four Seasons" at the Electric Lodge theater in Venice. It's a movement piece set to the music of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and features a video cameo of Sean in a dream sequence. It's very cool. Also, congratulations to our friend Mike Moore for the publication of his novel, Too Much of Nothing. Any book named after a Bob Dylan song has a head start in my, er, book. Here's the Amazon page. Mike will be reading from the book at the Borders in Torrance on October 15th at 7:30. Molli's trying to get him a reading at Skylight books the night before, so we'll let you know. Check his site for more readings in the Bay Area. Ken Layne has posted a ruff mix of one a song called Mama, Take Another Stand from his upcoming record here, which you should immediately download and play loudly. Also I must say that I've been listening to Neil Young's new Greendale CD quite a bit, and it's awesome. I think it's his best since Ragged Glory. And if you like hilarious pictures involving babies and food, don't miss the bagel post.
I've been remiss in my movie reviews, but here goes, with a play thrown in for Variety.
The Rundown (2003) - Good Good Good Good - This has everything you want from your action movie: A brooding tough hero with a heart of gold (The Rock), a psychotic and quirky villain (Christofer Walken,) a comic foil, a kick-ass female lead, an exotic setting, killer fist fights, stylish gun play, insane tiny Indian dervishes, humping monkeys, and nods to Indiana Jones. The audience we saw it with broke out into applause three times.
Agent Cody Banks (2002) - Fun and light well made action/comedy for teens. It has a tight story and many nods to James Bond movies, which is a good thing.
Pickup on South Street (1953) - Good Good Good - Sam Fuller's hard boiled noir about a pickpocket who unwittingly steals stolen government secrets from a communist spy's unwitting mule, then tries to play the cops against the reds and in the meantime finds love. Excellent characters and great writing, but the love story is a little bit too unbelievable and brings it down slightly.
The Producers (2003) - Good Good Good - We went to see the musical at the Pantages theater. It was a lot of fun and it was great to see Martin Short and George from Seinfeld live. The play was funny and the music was good but it lost a little momentum in the last few songs.
The Tuxedo (2002) - Scooby Poo - I turned it off after twenty minutes because I was afraid it was killing the brain cells of my son who was asleep in the next room. < shudder > Awful from the first scene.
Shanghai Knights (2002) - Good Good Good - Silly comedy/action/genre movie. Jackie Chan provides the great fighting while Owen Wilson inserts funny jokes. Moves along well and never takes itself too seriously.
Days of Glory (1944) - Good - Gregory Peck's first movie! He plays a Russian soldier in charge of a group of peasant geurillas based in the mountains who are harassing the occupying Nazi's. They are joined by a ballerina from Moscow who quickly loses her innocence and then falls in love. This was a propaganda movie showing the valiant efforts of our Soviet allies. It's not nearly as good as the similarly themed The North Star, but it has it's moments. Like all good wartime propaganda movies, all the characters make the ultimate sacrifice.
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) - Good Good Good Good Good - Five goods. An awesome movie in every respect. Great effects, great action, many things too look at.
Head of State (2002) - Bad Bad - An awful movie that I wanted to like but... It just wasn't funny.
posted by Greg 10:43 AM
Sunday, September 28, 2003
We had a big saturday. At Dim Sum we got to see our friend Xander walk. Then we went to see the granparents and Molli and I got to go see the excellent new The Rock movie "The Rundown." Then a visit to Party City in preparation for you know who's big number 1.
I was lucky enough to be invited to record a track for the upcoming Ken Layne CD last night at Hot Pie Recording in Pasadena. It was a lot of fun and what I heard of the record sounds great! Here's a picture of Peter K with Ken:
Here's Executive Producer Charlie with Axel:
Dan laying down some organ:
Me bending the neck:
Studio owner, engineer and producer Mark with The Board:
Great News! Robert Heinlein's long lost first novel "For Us, The Living" has been found and is being published. Apparently it was "too racy" to be published when it was written in 1939. Profits from it's sale will go to support human exploration of space. Click the link to read the story of it's re-discovery and pre-order it from Amazon.
posted by Greg 2:20 PM
